


The Adequate Hulk

by Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, How Do I Tag, Inspired by Fanfiction, Please Don't Hate Me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 20:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18213116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism/pseuds/Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism
Summary: General Thaddeus Ross's project needs to be as cheap as possible. So child experimentation is obviously the way to go.





	The Adequate Hulk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RelenaDuo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RelenaDuo/gifts).
  * Inspired by [TeenVengers, ASSEMBLE!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545780) by [RelenaDuo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RelenaDuo/pseuds/RelenaDuo). 



> You may have heard of the story TeenVengers, ASSEMBLE! by RelenaDuo. If you haven't, then you really should check it out. But when I was rereading it, I was amazed to discover no chapter about The Incredible Hulk (which isn't surprising, given the film's track record). So, I took it upon myself to write my own. Next stop, Guardians of the Galaxy. This one's on me.

The United States government has always been concerned with budget cuts.

America is coincidentally one of the largest and richest capitalist countries, and after decades of turmoil, war and unrest, the government funding had finally paused its seemingly random cycle of ups and downs very firmly in the 'down' position. This was bad, as despite continued high costs - nearly $700 billion a year at times - very little of that money was replaced, or indeed cut down on. As a result, there were, in the following years a great number of cost-cutting measures, some more successful than others. However, probably the most absurd, and definitely the most secretive, was the funding for the Weapon Plus II Project.

The problem with the original project was, as with the second, the secrecy surrounding it. Nearly all official records had been destroyed. The test subject had disappeared, the blood samples had been used up within a year, and two of the chief scientists had died in mysterious circumstances. All that was left to the general public was a bunch of antique trading cards that nobody remembered and cheerful-looking propaganda posters stuffed in some undisturbed corner of a museum. But they couldn't waste any more time trying to get more info on the project. The government was threatening to shut down the project if they didn't get results. And so it was that General Thaddeus Ross made a difficult decision to kill two birds with one stone, and replicate the experiment in the cheapest way possible.

"No, it makes perfect sense. If we use a child, just think of the oppurtunities!"

There was no question as to who the child should be. "Bruce Banner was a perfect candidate," Ross had claimed. "He has no familial ties, small enough to escape notice, and Betty says he's an expert in gamma radiation." The rest of the project was simple. Banner was rushed through a revised doctorate over the course of a month, in which time any equipment they could guess was necessary was prepared. Despite the earlier setback, the experiment looked set to succeed.

Until the experiment actually went ahead.

Now, five years later, Ross was really regretting having chosen a test subject this good at evading capture. He had been scouring the globe for half a decade, and had he not thought to check for cases of radiation poisoning, he would have found nothing. It had been hard enough as it was. Assembling the right people, doing the right research. He needed something to show for this experiment. He wasn't the sort of man to give up on an opportunity like this.

Which was why he was so upset about the escape.

Why he was so upset about having to search Brazilian slums for green muscle monsters.

Why he was so upset about having to tell his best soldier about the experiment.

So was it really so bad that he agreed to Blonksy's proposal?

* * *

Bruce's plan was simple enough.

STEP 1:  ~~Get back to Culver~~  Get himself clothes. Stretchy as possible. If he was going to have to scare little children, he'd rather it was just through being an indestructible monster.

STEP 2: Get back to Culver. How exactly he was meant to get through the entirety of Mexico without being noticed when he couldn't cut his finger without poisoning a stranger he had no idea.

STEP 3: Hack Betty's computer for info on the experiment for Mr Blue. He distinctly remembered refusing General Ross's offers of hacking training because 'it won't be necessary.' Oh, the bittersweet irony of hindsight.

STEP 4: Find Mr Blue and get treated as best as possible. Probably the easiest step, aside from the agonisingly painful procedures Mr Blue had been predicting.

And so far, it had actually gone surprisingly well. Guatemalan markets were sort to sell anything and everything, including the much-needed stretchy pants. The colour was a shame, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Getting back to Culver could also have gone much less smoothly. He was able to hitchhike half the way, and walk the rest. So, after some intense yoga and 17 days without incident, he sat in front of a computer, not too long before he found himself sulking in a bed above a pizza place he'd inadvertently given a lot more publicity on his 'first time out'. 

But then came the true bummer. Out of all the people who could have been sitting in a booth, it had to be Betty fucking Ross with her psychiatrist boyfriend.

As ever, Betty did not quite know how to keep her cool. Having seen Bruce emerge from the kitchen and hastily reenter, she promptly abandoned her date and ran after the boy she'd come to view as a son. Bruce, to his credit, managed to run a significant way across town before she caught up with him. But she had the benefit of age and confusion, and Bruce could only run so fast without hulking out, literally.

But he didn't, however, resist her attempts to hug him. It was nice. Nice to have someone care about his feelings, to have someone show genuine affection, to have want to be with Bruce Banner and not the Hulk. You didn't get that in Rocinha, or Guatemala. Nobody whispered "I'm never going to leave you again," to Bruce Banner anywhere.

He was glad she hadn't brought the boyfriend.

* * *

And the worst part was, they had almost managed it. They had managed to get into a lab. They had managed to get an address from Mr Blue. They had managed to get the information they needed. They had almost been ready to go and fix a life before they realised how eerily empty the building was. 

"Betty, now would be a good time to run," tried Bruce. No, he didn't want her to see the other guy if he could avoid it. Was that so bad?

"Bruce, I told you, I'm not leaving. We can get out together. Maybe there's a backdoor."

"No, they'll have the place surrounded. You can get out now, they're not after you."

"Excuse me, Bruce, I am a young woman running off with a mysterious stranger who my dad hates, you really think he won't be after me too?"

"I'm not sure that applies if the mysterious stranger is twelve years old."

"It's the principle of the thing."

Bruce sighs. He didn't want to have to do this, but she was stubborn, to a level that his brain couldn't yet argue with. 

"Betty? Find a table and get underneath. And please have a new pair of pants ready. Just in case."

After the buildup he'd had, the first of the missiles was enough. As he went green, just one thought crossed his rapidly slowing mind before it was lost.  _I'm going to kill that psychiatrist._

The tanks were easy enough, provided he got there without getting too badly shot. Just guns on wheels. The helicopter was barely any harder. Admittedly, he did destroy a tree trying to get high enough to jump up to it, and he would later have a fleeting memory of the three-hundred-year-old Virginian Oak, last living specimen, but desperate times... The people presented a challenge though. To Bruce's rather limited knowledge, the Other Guy had never intentionally killed someone, just knocked them out, and that was something he seemed like has going to try and keep up. 

Blonksy didn't count. He was really more dickhead than human. Probably shouldn't have teased the Other Guy. For someone who literally had such thick skin, the Other Guy was surprisingly sensitive.

When Bruce eventually woke up, he was immediately aware of a) his nakedness, b) Betty stroking his hair, c) the cave surroundings and d) the pounding headache, reminiscent of the hangover he would, no doubt, one day experience.

"Ah, fuck."

* * *

Dr Samuel Sterns had not liked how the meeting had gone, for several reasons.

\- First, he had decided to meet them at the subway station, before realising that they weren't taking the subway ("Me, in a metal tube, deep underground, with hundreds of people, in the most aggressive city in the world?" Bruce had asked, slightly patronisingly).

\- Then, Sterns had realised that 'they' did not, in this case, mean a gender-ambiguous pronoun, but instead multiple people, one of which had a father trying to hunt them down.

\- It then became apparent that the vastly intelligent Mr Green he had been communicating with was actually a twelve-year-old boy - Sterns was fairly certain that he'd only managed to keep his doctorate through some unseen patron. Maybe that Strategic Homeland Intervention blah blah blah who'd been asking around.

\- The boy had then strongly objected to the blood Sterns had synthesised being used. Seriously, this kid had a cure for a cancer and he ignored it.

\- The woman had been furious when it turned out that the antidote was  only temporary, and both Sterns and Banner had jumped to action, offering their skills in anger management. 

\- The whole thing had turned out to be for nothing, as the two were captured.

\- A deranged Russian soldier had cornered Sterns and forced him to inject him with the aforementioned blood in order to do something he hadn't quite specified. "I come from Chernobyl," he had claimed. "I can handle pretty much anything."

\- The deranged Russian soldier had transformed into Hulk 2.0, only more clever and violent and reptilian for some reason that Sterns couldn't quite figure out, and attacked Sterns, giving Sterns a pulsating head full of Hulk blood.

\- That same Strategic Homeland Intervention blah blah blah had arrived to arrest him, and do experiments, no doubt. Oh, dear...

* * *

It's easier to spare you the details of a savage battle. Some things are best left to the imagination and a few chance details. The crater left by the falling Hulk was deep enough that several cars got trapped down there.  There were several who were confused as to whose side they should be on, and several more there to drag the others away. Grannies, taxi drivers, teens in aviator sunglasses and grey wigs were all pushed roughly aside. Nobody ever quite worked out why one had a spiky back and the other didn't. And, in the end, the chain that nearly throttled Blonsky actually came from a fancy-dress store which was very surprised at how thick the plastic must have been.

But Ross? Got a fair enough deal out of it. The Hulk disappeared off the face of the planet, he had one less daughter to get Christmas cards to, he got custody of Blonsky and managed to keep his job. As he chugged down another pint of some German beer he couldn't remember the name of, he knew very clearly how he felt.  _Not so bad. It all turned out for the best. Pretty happy right now._

"Hmm, the smell of stale beer and defeat. Y'know, I'd hate to say I told you so, general, but that super soldier program was put on ice for a reason. I've always felt that hardware was much more reliable."

Okay, first off, how was Tony Stark allowed to enter the bar?


End file.
